资源环境科技发展态势分析平台

While it has been known that wave breaking and bubble generation at high wind speeds enhance air‐sea CO₂ exchange rates (F), quantification of their contribution at the global scale remains a formidable challenge. There is urgency to make progress on this issue as a significant uptick in both magnitude and frequency of high wind events (HW) has been documented over the last three decades. Using a wind‐wave dependent expression for gas transfer velocity (k) that explicitly considers bubbles and a widely used wind‐only parameterization, the spatial pattern of k at high winds can be explained by sea surface temperature distribution. The HW, which represent some 3% of wind conditions, contribute disproportionally to the global F (18%) with an increasing trend. Approximately 50% of the global F at high winds is attributed to bubble contribution. The findings are of significance to quantifying CO₂ transfer to the ocean interior.